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The Trial of Lucy Letby

scifisam said:
The only place handwriting analysis has in psychology (or neurology - obvs not the same, but there can be some overlap in who's treating a person) is in noticing major changes in an individual's handwriting.

TBF I don't think the article you posted is very persuasive either. It admits that Letby fits a few of their criteria (though they included "Christian," and that's just an assumption), but also misses loads of them. If their profile - from the way they describe it (and if there had been more stuff that specifically pointed out someone like Letby, surely the writer would have mentioned it) - had actually been used a starter tool when selecting who to focus on, they'd have missed Letby and included loads of innocent people instead.
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FWIW, I didn't post any article.
 
bluescreen said:
This struck me too, but then I am old. Now I think of it, parents these days are far more invested in their children's education and future than my generation's was. For example, I'd have been utterly mortified if my parents had wanted to scope out my university or digs, let alone come along to an open day, if they'd even had open days back then. (I'd have told them to back off - I didn't even do the graduation ceremony. :oops: )

And she was their only child, and a preemie at that, so maybe they were more invested than the average and maybe she wasn't averse to using her father's powers of persuasion if he'd proved to be effectively persuasive on her side before.

I don't know though.
The whole business is mystifying and tragic. I wonder if she has any insight into her motivation or even acknowledges what she's done.
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I have noticed it's more generally the norm these days, although it still varies person to person. I'm only three years older than Letby and insisted on my independence! I'm the third of four children, the other three being boys. My two older brothers were born a year apart, then there was a five year age gap before me, and my younger brother arrived two and a half years after me. So me and brother number 3 were "the babies", and had one or two teachers sneer at us for being spoilt and mollycoddled - not based on anything we'd done, but just stereotyping, and automatically treated us like we'd be naughtier than the other kids. Well, I wasn't perfect and could be as naughty as any kid, but "mollycoddled" was an insult and a stereotype I rebelled against! Once I was 16, I would never let my mum get involved in anything, even if she offered; and I left Birmingham to live in London as soon as I'd done my GCSEs. I think that stereotyping what fuelled my drive for independence, and my brother is similar although he left home relatively later at 23, because he was the last one to fly the nest and he thought it would break Mum's heart. It didn't, though! She'd remarried by then and she was practically nagging him to make a life for himself with his girlfriend, as she knew that's what he wanted. They now live in Wales and only regret not doing it sooner.

However, I think we're probably anamolies among our age group. I agree there's a lot more parental involvement for a lot longer now, in general. When I was temping during the 2009 recession, one of the offices I went to work at was full of people my age but from much more privileged backgrounds. They were friendly enough, in a nosy way, and asked a lot of questions! When discussing what we'd done after one weekend, I mentioned I'd gone to my mum's in Birmingham. My colleagues were horrified that a) I didn't have a car to drive there and "had to" get the train instead, and that b) I'd paid for my own ticket instead of Mum buying it for me! I was 22, well into adulthood. To me, once you were of working age, you'd grab your chance to earn your own money and pay for your own stuff because then you didn't have to owe anything. I couldn't understand why a healthy adult would choose to rely on their parents at that age. I'd never really come across that attitude before and it struck me that might have been their first time meeting a working-class person. So it could be partly a class thing with Letby, I guess. Her dad was a boss in his company and might have been used to getting his own way? Who knows. Maybe that, combined with how good she felt getting away with murder - literally.
 
romeo2001 said:
I find it it incredibly strange that her parents were so involved in her employment- this can't be normal - appearing at her grievances etc
First thought was they were high up in nhs or SOMEWHERE with power and influence but everything I've read said they were normal working class parents who had never been to university.....
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This is more common in the industry I'm working in than healthcare. IME there is a correlation between parents who provide this level of support (support seems like the wrong word?) and people doing unhinged shit.

It's easy to empathise with the parents, as often a lot of them didn't get any support themselves and from their point of view are probably behaving quite passively, not considering their role as being an enabler or any other labels we'd use like co-dependent etc. It's not the same beast as helicopter parenting.

While parents behaving like this doesn't always mean the adult child is a problem, it's natural that when you pool these types together as a group they'll skew to being problematic simply because they're more sheltered from their own behaviour than those around them, and even on a basic level less likely to empathise with the unfairness and sadness we all deal with in our lives because they don't come up against it so much, protected by the parents as it were.
 
LeytonCatLady said:
I have noticed it's more generally the norm these days, although it still varies person to person. I'm only three years older than Letby and insisted on my independence! I'm the third of four children, the other three being boys. My two older brothers were born a year apart, then there was a five year age gap before me, and my younger brother arrived two and a half years after me. So me and brother number 3 were "the babies", and had one or two teachers sneer at us for being spoilt and mollycoddled - not based on anything we'd done, but just stereotyping, and automatically treated us like we'd be naughtier than the other kids. Well, I wasn't perfect and could be as naughty as any kid, but "mollycoddled" was an insult and a stereotype I rebelled against! Once I was 16, I would never let my mum get involved in anything, even if she offered; and I left Birmingham to live in London as soon as I'd done my GCSEs. I think that stereotyping what fuelled my drive for independence, and my brother is similar although he left home relatively later at 23, because he was the last one to fly the nest and he thought it would break Mum's heart. It didn't, though! She'd remarried by then and she was practically nagging him to make a life for himself with his girlfriend, as she knew that's what he wanted. They now live in Wales and only regret not doing it sooner.

However, I think we're probably anamolies among our age group. I agree there's a lot more parental involvement for a lot longer now, in general. When I was temping during the 2009 recession, one of the offices I went to work at was full of people my age but from much more privileged backgrounds. They were friendly enough, in a nosy way, and asked a lot of questions! When discussing what we'd done after one weekend, I mentioned I'd gone to my mum's in Birmingham. My colleagues were horrified that a) I didn't have a car to drive there and "had to" get the train instead, and that b) I'd paid for my own ticket instead of Mum buying it for me! I was 22, well into adulthood. To me, once you were of working age, you'd grab your chance to earn your own money and pay for your own stuff because then you didn't have to owe anything. I couldn't understand why a healthy adult would choose to rely on their parents at that age. I'd never really come across that attitude before and it struck me that might have been their first time meeting a working-class person. So it could be partly a class thing with Letby, I guess. Her dad was a boss in his company and might have been used to getting his own way? Who knows. Maybe that, combined with how good she felt getting away with murder - literally.
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When I was a postgrad student at uni and involved in a dispute there was an expectation that I brought either my parents or a parent like figure along with me. I was floored - I know I'm an anomaly for my generation (on my own from age 17, that was a decade ago now) but no one doing a postgraduate course is under 21.
 
muscovyduck said:
When I was a postgrad student at uni and involved in a dispute there was an expectation that I brought either my parents or a parent like figure along with me. I was floored - I know I'm an anomaly for my generation (on my own from age 17, that was a decade ago now) but no one doing a postgraduate course is under 21.
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Gotta love their assumption that everyone has a parent or guardian type figure in their life! My brother's ex grew up in the foster system and was fending for herself from age 18. I wonder how their bureaucracy would cope with someone in those circumstances.
 
I promise you this: if any of you killed/attempted to kill dozen(s) of babies — and your lives were subsequently laid bare — I could definitely find something weird about your life. I could then claim that weird thing as some kind of explanatory or relational factor to your crimes. This is why post hoc reasoning is fallacious.
 
I've no idea what drove her to kill babies and, so can't see the point in speculating. I hope she is treated well in prison and not subjected to violence. I also hope that she disappears into obscurity. I won't watch the sensitivity made insightful drama that the BBC will inevitably make about her crimes, even if they find a way of shoehorning Timothy Spall into it.
 
kabbes said:
I promise you this: if any of you killed/attempted to kill dozen(s) of babies — and your lives were subsequently laid bare — I could definitely find something weird about your life. I could then claim that weird thing as some kind of explanatory or relational factor to your crimes. This is why post hoc reasoning is fallacious.
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I think we've resorted to "it must be because she's so normal" at this point.
 
Aladdin said:
I read that the other day and felt uncomfortable. Partly because its written after the event, as in, after she has been convicted. I just don't believe that a psychologist would have picked her out as a serial killer if they were asked to interview every single nurse in that ward after the first suspicions
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They didn't claim that did they? What they basically said was don't let preconceptions cloud investigations. Some serial killers seem like normal caring nurses with the usual range of human experience and foibles. Most seemingly normal caring nurses are exactly that but occasionally one might actually be a serial killer. A profile is just a profile.
 
tim said:
I've no idea what drove her to kill babies and, so can't see the point in speculating.
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Whatever reason she had for doing it and however shocking and unique her behaviour she was human and humans benefit from discussing events at the limits of human behaviour in order to better understand humans and explore whether there are ways of making events like this less likely in future. Some of the speculation might not be terribly useful but it's normal human behaviour.

I'm on a children's ward today (nothing terrible but obviously not touching enough wood when I was boasting on here about him not having been in for a year) and all the nurses here are fabulous even if a bit too busy. I'm sure it's particularly heartbreaking for them to be associated in any way with the terrible things to this woman did.
 
kabbes said:
I promise you this: if any of you killed/attempted to kill dozen(s) of babies — and your lives were subsequently laid bare — I could definitely find something weird about your life. I could then claim that weird thing as some kind of explanatory or relational factor to your crimes. This is why post hoc reasoning is fallacious.
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Agree with this - and a prematurely born only child daughter having parents more protective than the average is pretty vanilla as far as weird things to find about someone's life go.
 
kabbes said:
I promise you this: if any of you killed/attempted to kill dozen(s) of babies — and your lives were subsequently laid bare — I could definitely find something weird about your life. I could then claim that weird thing as some kind of explanatory or relational factor to your crimes. This is why post hoc reasoning is fallacious.
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Although, to be fair, without committing any meaningful crime, you could look at my life and think 'he's a bit odd'.
 
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kabbes said:
I promise you this: if any of you killed/attempted to kill dozen(s) of babies — and your lives were subsequently laid bare — I could definitely find something weird about your life. I could then claim that weird thing as some kind of explanatory or relational factor to your crimes. This is why post hoc reasoning is fallacious.
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You'd just adduce posts from here as evidence of weirdness
 
Magnus McGinty said:
Representing their daughter in a meeting where they demanded an apology over her being (correctly) accused of murder is not vanilla. It’s weird.
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Maybe it's just me but I find that possibly the least weird thing. Most parents would be up in arms if their child was accused of murder and I assume at that stage the evidence looked pretty weak (I understand a lot of it was based on her being there when babies died, and bear in mind they think she's this awesome nurse.) It's a pretty hefty accusation for someone to make about your child, I think it would take a while to sink in. I'd be pretty indignant, too.
 
I am surprised that as far as I am aware no one has raised the point that if the babies had been a few months younger a completely different legal framework would have applied.
 
Poot said:
Maybe it's just me but I find that possibly the least weird thing. Most parents would be up in arms if their child was accused of murder and I assume at that stage the evidence looked pretty weak (I understand a lot of it was based on her being there when babies died, and bear in mind they think she's this awesome nurse.) It's a pretty hefty accusation for someone to make about your child, I think it would take a while to sink in. I'd be pretty indignant, too.
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But would u attend their disciplinary and would they want you to be there. Its just one of the many things that don't make sense - a nearly 30 years old (and not by any means newly qualified) had their hand held by their parents at work. If that happened where u work wouldn't you think it was strange?
 
romeo2001 said:
But would u attend their disciplinary and would they want you to be there. Its just one of the many things that don't make sense - a nearly 30 years old (and not by any means newly qualified) had their hand held by their parents at work. If that happened where u work wouldn't you think it was strange?
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It’s quite normal for people to ask for a witness/advocate in disciplinary hearings, and if my adult child asked me I’d attend then I would. I’d be quite touched that they asked me because they thought I’d be the best person. I don’t think it’s completely abnormal behaviour for people who are close to their parents.

There’s a question of how they advocated of course.
 
kabbes said:
I promise you this: if any of you killed/attempted to kill dozen(s) of babies — and your lives were subsequently laid bare — I could definitely find something weird about your life. I could then claim that weird thing as some kind of explanatory or relational factor to your crimes. This is why post hoc reasoning is fallacious.
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There's all these posts on an Internet forum for a start...
 
steveo87 said:
Although, to be fair, without committing any meaningful crime, you could look at my life and think 'he's a bit odd'.
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I’m now thinking about what people would speculate about me if I did anything awful… :hmm:

E2A: such musings feel a bit “too soon” to be appropriate as a separate thread topic. But the fact I even considered it can be used for any future psychological profiling in the unlikely event I become publicly infamous. You’re welcome ;)
 
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romeo2001 said:
But would u attend their disciplinary and would they want you to be there. Its just one of the many things that don't make sense - a nearly 30 years old (and not by any means newly qualified) had their hand held by their parents at work. If that happened where u work wouldn't you think it was strange?
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It's a fair point but we're not talking about a disciplinary for skiving or nicking stationery. I'm quite close to my parents, and in fact I have an awful lot of things in common with LL. Except one very important thing, obviously. I wouldn't want my parents to attend a work disciplinary, no. Of course not. But if I'd been accused of murdering babies, and I threw myself at their mercy and told them I didn't do it, unless there was some pretty substantial evidence, I'm pretty sure they would definitely believe me and would trample anyone who stood in their way to ensure I was listened to. I would probably do the same for my kids, too.

I don't work in an industry where it would be easy to kill or affect someone's life to that extent, so I can't compare. People's partners sometimes attend disciplinaries I think.

People can't believe their loved ones are capable of such a thing because then everything they believe is wrong.
 
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